New Yorker turns toenail clippings into sellable art

You like your toenails? One 45-year-old Queens, NY, resident Mike Drake collects his fingernail and toenail clippings. He then turns them into acrylic paperweights. You can buy one for $300 – $500. You can buy two and be like a Mike, a collector.

“I used to bite my nails, and I wondered how long they could grow. And then I wondered how much I might be able to accumulate.”

So he collected his nail clippings in a Ziploc baggie for about a year, and was about to throw them out when inspiration struck. He decided to do something ‘artistic’ with them.

“I realised I went to all that effort, and I figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. I already worked with acrylics as a hobby so I decided to make paperweights.”

Want to see one?

If you stare at it long enough you can see all the things Mike’s touched.